The busy timetable of functions of the many Christian communities sharing the Holy Sepulchre, visionary and never-realized masterplans for the Western Wall Plaza and the unique routines of a site switching from mosque to Jewish worshipping venue within 24 hours. The In Statu Quo exhibition at Israel Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2018 shows the fragile system of co-existence of 5 iconic holy sites.

What if school was in your aunt’s flat, your favourite restaurant in a neighbour’s living room and the hospital at the end of the corridor? Under Milošević’s regime, Albanians’ public spaces in Kosovo were in people’s homes. The exhibition The City is Everywhere at Venice Biennale 2018 explores how private and public overlapped in the ‘90s.

The Victoria & Albert Museum saved a large part of the iconic Robin Hood Gardens from bulldozers and re-assembled it at Venice Biennale 2018 as part of a contested exhibition about the Brutalist building which many have have praised while others have described as “a failed social experiment of inhuman Modernism, not to be funded with public money”.

Germany Pavilion at Venice Biennale 2018 features a black wall which unfolds as visitors walk in. The Unbuilding Walls exhibition responds to current debates on protectionism and explores the effects of division and the process of healing as a dynamic spatial phenomenon. On show how Berlin’s former border zone was transformed into culturally vibrant spaces and how people deal with ‘infamous’ border walls across the globe.

5 recurring keywords at Venice Biennale 2018. National pavilions respond to to the FREESPACE main theme with visionary masterplans for Jerusalem Western Wall, a Trump defying US-Mexico border, the millennials’ occupation of Budapest’s Liberty bridge and more…

Switzerland wins the Golden Lion at Venice Architecture Biennale with a pavilion focused on the average empty apartment while Great Britain gets an honorable mention for a Brexit-themed exhibition and with a hollowed out pavilion too. Is emptiness the key to create free spaces that can improve our lives?

Curators of Venice Biennale 2018 say to Archipanic that architects can contribute to improve our lives through the design of public and free spaces… “Because architecture is a gift and this planet is our client”.

Bjarke Ingels’ architecture firm conceived a prismatic architecture open the city for the National Theatre of Albania in the country’s capital. The design arches up from the ground creating a public space for impromptu performances or other cultural events.